Mr Monk and the Phantom Fingerprint
by Ivette Boveda
Summary: Monk helps a medical examiner from Boston solve her mother's murder.Chapter 13 is now up!
1. Default Chapter

"It's for you. " Sharona told Adrian. "A Dr. Cavanaugh?"

Agitated, he furiously wiped the phone and started to talk.

"I remember you! You stole evidence from me on a case you weren't even supposed to be on!"

"Are you still mad about that?" She asked him matter of factly. The doctor's obsession with a case had taken her to San Francisco. "I need your help on an unsolved murder. The victim was a cop's wife." What she didn't mention was that said victim had been her mother.

"Why should I?" Monk was still angry.

"Two words: phantom print" the medical examiner cooed, knowing that Monk loved a good mystery.

"Phantom print?" This peaked his interest; the Medical examiner referred to a situation where fingerprints taken from the scene could not be found on any local, state or Federal databases.

"Look, given your line of work, it couldn't hurt having me owe ya a favor" Dr. Cavanaugh tried to be persuasive.

"As long as you don't steal my evidence!!" he admonished her.

"Fine, fine. How soon can I see you?" She had access to the case files and materials.

"As soon as you can. Sharona, my nurse will meet you at the airport." He told her coolly then hung up.

Sighing, Dr. Cavanaugh, or Jordan, as her friends called her, got permission from her boss to take time off, and had a friend of hers, Nigel, get her an online ticket to San Francisco. As soon as she knew her father had left the house to work at the bar he owned, she went inside the house, opened a closet, and took out a box marked 'Emily Cavanaugh.' Carefully, she put everything into several plastic bags, which she later packed into her luggage.

By the next afternoon, she met Sharona, who held a perfectly written sign that said. 'Dr. Cavanaugh.' near the baggage claim area. Sharona had recognized Jordan by her long black hair, which the doctor had mentioned when they made arrangements just prior to her flight. The sign had been Adrian's idea and doing.

"Welcome! Thanks for Coming!" Sharona said. "I'm sorry Adrian couldn't come......."

"It's okay, I understand." Jordan knew about the man's many phobias, and obsessions.

"I hope you don't mind meeting at his home?" Sharona continued. "He feels more comfortable there."

"Sure no problem."

Soon, they were at his home. Monk was straightening out some glasses in the kitchen. His back was towards the two women.

"Adrian.....Dr. Cavanaugh's here....."

"Oh!" He continued his task for a bit longer.

Some time later, Jordan had all the materials set up for Monk, including a clear, plastic sheet that had the phantom print.

In his immaculate living room, Monk wiped, and looked at various things, noticing that there seemed to be a resemblance between the victim and Jordan. That combined with identical last names made him realize the depth of this case.

"I see….she was your mother…."

"Yeah…."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was afraid that you wouldn't take the case if I had."

Monk just gave her a dirty look.

"How did you get these files?" he asked, suspiciously.

"My dad had them. He used to be a cop."

"Does he know you have them?"

"Look, can you help me or not?"

"How could you steal this from him??" Adrian became angry again, thinking about how he'd feel if someone had taken his files on Trudy.

"He doesn't like to talk about it."

"Adrian…….it's her mother" Sharona whispered.

After some moments, Monk sighed and said. "I'll take a look at these files, and we can talk tomorrow."

"Sure..."Jordan tried to hide her impatience.

For the next two hours, Monk studied the materials, focusing mostly on the plastic transparency with the fingerprint. With his powerful ability to see what others miss, he noticed discrepancies, when he mentally compared it to fingerprints he'd seen.

"This fingerprint is fake." He concluded. "See…..

"What??" Sharona interrupted as she didn't believe him. "This murder happened in 1979!"

"That's the problem" Monk frowned.

"Why do a fake fingerprint, when it's safer not to leave any??" She asked, looking at the transparency.

"To leave a false trail"

"What??" Jordan exclaimed angrily when she heard the verdict the next day. Adrian covered his ears and cringed.

"Could you please lower your voice?" he asked her.

"You've got superman vision too??" She asked in an enraged tone.

He, over the course of three hours tried to show her the various idiosyncrasies that proved this fingerprint was indeed a fake. She asked quite a few questions, and had trouble seeing a lot of his observations.

"Can you see it now?" Adrian started to get impatient.

"It's impossible for a person to change or get rid of their fingerprints!" Jordan protested, now doubting her decision to see Monk.

"I'm talking about someone making a template, then using it to mark the crime scene."

"Of course…that makes more sense…" Jordan began to understand. "You'll need to come to Boston to visit it."

Monk winced, and shifted his widened pupils in anxiety. Traveling meant having to fly , be in close proximity to overwhelming noises, encounter God knows how many germs, and worst of all, grapple with heights

"I've already got pictures of the crime scene right here!" he told her.

"Look, I've got friends in the press. Solve this case, and you just might be more sought after."

"And you'd owe me favors?"

"Yes"

After much haggling, Adrian relented. So, the three of them went to Boston.

After Sharona, and Adrian settled in, Jordan took them in her car to her father's bar. It was quite nice, with mostly wooden tables, and chairs. Sharona and Monk noticed a tall, chubby, light haired man serving drinks to a couple.

"Wait here." She told them.

The semi- emptiness of the bar, kept Adrian relatively calm.

"Hey Jordan!" Max greeted her.

"Hey dad! I'd like you meet to a couple of people"

"Oh?" He was interested, as he found Sharona attractive.

"Have you ever heard of Adrian Monk?"

"Vaguely why?"

"I've…asked him to help with mom's murder"

He glared at her from the serving side of the counter and whispered harshly "When were you planning to tell me this?" It angered him that she'd make this decision without telling him.

"I am now. Dad, this guy is brilliant! Talk to him!" Jordan told him. She'd read about some of Monk's cases.

"I've been through the evidence and everything else a thousand times." Max told her curtly, as he saw the man compulsively fix the chairs around the bar so that they'd be equidistant to their table companions. He also took it upon himself to wipe the tables. These tasks kept Adrian from really paying attention to their conversation, despite his ultra sensitive hearing. Sharona just groaned and waited patiently.

"This guy sees things that everyone else just passes over."

"Like invisible dirt?" Monk's actions had gotten on Max's nerves.

"Two months ago, he solved a cold case twice as old as mom's!"

"Did he now?" Max sighed. "Fine, let's see what he's made of."

"He has a bit of a germ phobia, and he's obsessive compulsive." She warned

"I hadn't noticed." The bar owner retorted.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Soon, Monk wiped a stool across from Max, and sat on it. Sharon and Jordan placed themselves nearby, as Adrian then wiped the counter.

"Those fountains need to be cleaned" He told the bar owner as he pointed.

"I'll put it on my to do list" Max groaned

"Nice place you've got" Adrian added, as he doubted that a police retirement pension would be enough to allow the former detective to buy such a bar. "Is it always empty?"

"I've got good and bad days"

Just then, Jordan's cell phone rang, and she went to another part of the bar. Adrian found this to be a blessing; perhaps her father would be more open.

"Did she tell you, about my theory?"

"No...what is it?" Max leaned closer in curiosity as Monk leaned back.

"The fingerprint found at the scene is fake."

"Excuse me?" The last thing Max needed was some nut putting his wife in the middle of some crazy conspiracy theory.

"Let me explain.." He signaled for Sharona to give the transparency to him."Look at the ridge ending, notice how it ends at an awkward angle" He was referring to one of the eight things used to identify and match fingerprints.

Max growled, and put on his reading glasses. "It is a bit high"

"Most of the time, ridge endings tend to be around this area." Monk drew a very small imaginary circle, which the ridge ending on the transparency missed by less than a millimeter.

"So it's a unique fingerprint?" Max sharply sniped.

"Look at the flexure crease. It's too low and has too much curvature."

"I don't see it."

"Then look at the ridge dot. It's too small" Monk's voice started to rise with impatience.

"I...." Max began to say.

"Fingerprints, like individuals, are unique, but there are still some parameters." Monk interrupted.

"Like ...having two eyes" Sharona lamely added.

"Then why not fake my fingerprints?" Max asked, still doubtful.

Just then, Jordan interrupted them; she had some news.

"That was Nigel, he's done some research" she told them. "and wants us to come to the morgue."

"The morgue?" Adrian repeated. He could barely handle being near one dead person, let alone a facility full of them, their germs, and other things he didn't want to think about.

"Don't worry, I'll keep you away from the corpses." she told him.

"This is about YOUR theory" Max spat, giving him an intimidating look.

"Fine."

Time passed and they were soon all in Jordan's office. Adrian kept trying to straighten out his visitor's badge. Soon Nigel came in. He usually didn't go to Jordan's office to discuss cases, but it was one of the few places in the morgue where one could be corpse-free.

"Mr. Monk, I presume?" Nigel said with a smile. "I've read about some of your cases and you are?" He turned to Sharona.

"Sharona."

"My assistant."

"Nice to meet you" he shook her hand.

"Whatcha got?" Jordan wanted to get to the point.

"Well, there are theories, but mostly they're about fooling biometric scanners."

"And we all know how plentiful those were in the seventies" Max seethed.

"...and forging someone else's prints.." Nigel continued, as Monk kept on trying to clean and organize Jordan's desk. "By making a mold of them."

"How?" Jordan asked.

"One way is to make a 'gummy finger' made from gelatin...."

"Isn't gelatin used for bacteria cultures?" Monk cut in.

"Yes. Among other things" Nigel assented "There is also some kind of photo chemical process."

For a bit, Monk paced and murmured to himself; everyone stared at him in anticipation.

"The Cribner case!" he paused and exclaimed.

"The one where there was no ballistics match on the bullet?" Max had heard about it.

"Yes My. theory has always been that the suspect made his own gun" Monk had picked his brain on this cold case from the mid seventies often when he used to be a detective.

"I always figured it was some rare exotic weapon" he told Adrian. "But if you're theory is correct......"

"The same man who killed your wife killed Cribner!" Monk finished and paced a bit more "....ballistics and fingerprints......He's obsessed with beating the system....like a game."

"Nigel, see if you can find any similar cases." Jordan ordered with renewed hope and anger, which Max had as well.

"Sharona, call Leland and tell him I need the Cribner files." Monk requested.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

"No Ballistics match? " Nigel began to say doubtfully. "Wouldn't that also mean that he made his own bullet?"

"No the bullet itself could be identified, just not the marks left on it" Max clarified. One aspect, among others, of doing ballistic matches had to do with how most guns left their own scar on a bullet shot out of them. "I think we should go to the house" he suggested.

"No...he should help Nigel look for similar cases" Jordan knew that Adrian could sift through and sort case files more efficiently than several people.

Gingerly, Adrian sat next to Nigel at Jordan's computer.

"First, let's take look at the morgue's internal database to see if we can find anymore local cases." He told Monk, who attempted to clean between the keys with one of his wipes.

"Jordan?" Dr. Garret Macy, the medical examiner's boss and friend, said as he came into her office. "You sure got over that flu pretty fast" He glared at her and worried. Sometimes Jordan's obsession with solving the murder of her mother worsened to the point of putting her over the edge mentally and emotionally.

"Garret......this is Adrian Monk, and his assistant Sharona" Jordan replied.

"Hi.." the nurse greeted as she shook Garret's hand.

"Hi..." Adrian said, as he refused to do the same

"I've heard about you" he told Monk, as he picked up on the germ phobia. Fellow Medical Examiners during seminars, symposiums and such had told tales of Adrian's abilities. "You're here about her mother's case aren't you?"

"Yes" Adrian responded.

"Dr. Macy? The D.A is here to see you" a clerk announced.

With a repressed sigh, Garrett whispered to Jordan:

"We'll talk later" Then left.

"I think I should go to the crime scene" Adrian announced.

Soon, he, Max, Sharona, and Jordan were at the Cavenaugh home. Once they entered, Monk began to straighten all the picture frames in the living room. Then, he did a bit of dusting, and general organizing. This bothered everyone, especially Jordan and Max.

"Jordan didn't bring you all the way here, so you could reorganize my house!" Max hissed.

"Okay..okay....." With a sigh, Monk began to examine the area where the body of Jordan's mother had been found. Intensely, he examined the floor by bending his back and his knees, then walking around in that position. Everyone watched him curiously.

Sometime later, he gestured for a wipe, and picked up, after some effort, what looked to be a black, solid speck. "Looks like it's been there for a while......"he remarked.

Quickly, Jordan got a small plasic, ziplock bag, and a relieved Monk dropped it in.

"What can you tell us?" she asked him, as he examined the speck.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

"Nothing, it just bothered me." He answered to everyone's exasperation.   
  
"Then why'd you gape at it?" Sharona shrilled in her Jersey accent.  
  
"It's from a vacuum. I was wondering how that piece broke off" he told them, assured of his own logic. Things like this tended to distract him. "That doesn't happen very often." He knew his cleaning tools quite well.  
  
"But murders do!!" Jordan angrily spat her obvious hint, as her face reddened and turned into a harsh glower.

"Maybe you should leave!" Max ordered in a tone of barely contained anger. Revisiting this case had been painful enough, without Monk's raising hopes just to seemingly blow Emily's case off because of a stupid vacuum part.

Monk stepped back in wincing reaction to the barkeep's harsh, loud and accented voice.

"Mr. Cavanaugh.......I know that Adrian can get a little distracted by weird stuff...." Sharona tried to calm the man, as she hid her own impatience. "But believe me, he'll find your wife's killer." She put on a soft soothing voice that she had perfected as a nurse, and as Monk's assistant.

"Dad....she's right..." Jordan sighed, though still annoyed at Monk. As they all talked, He proceeded to explore the rest of the house.

"I thought I told you to leave!" Max huffed as he followed Monk, who ignored him, to a hallway.

"Look at that!" The sleuth pointed to what looked to everyone else a random spot on the carpeted floor.

"What? You found some lint?" Max growled; part of him wanted to grab Monk by the shoulders and slam him against a wall. Floods of dammed up pain, and anger started to posses him.

"There's an unusual dent and texture on this spot" Adrian told them, intensely studying it.

"Jordan!" Max hissed as he indicated that he wanted to talk in the kitchen by pointing to it. The medical examiner remembered this gesture from her childhood.

"He seems angry.." Monk mused seriously, hoping this wouldn't mean the end of his part of the case.

Father and daughter both paced around the round, wooden table.

"I want him outta my house, Jordan!" He ordered, holding the top of a chair roughly. "He's jerking us around!"

"Dad! He's a private consultant for the San Francisco P.D! I could give you the names of at least twenty cops who have seen him at work!" Jordan's face grew hard from the other side of the table.

"Then they can have him!" Monk's methods and mannerisms could be exasperating, but for Max, they were unbearable, given the closeness of the case.

As father and daughter continued their argument, Adrian hyper-focused on the spot, while Sharona inwardly groaned and waited. Then he nervously went into the basement. The nurse could not fathom what one had to do with the other. Curiously, lock consisted of a sliding mechanism on their side of the door. With a wipe he opened it, and to his horror, the stairs lacked a railing and were rather steep. Grimly, he put his right foot on the first step, with the dread of a person stepping into volcanic lava: he put his arms out for balance, and hesitantly put the tip of his large toe onto the step.

"You can do it" Sharona encouraged, but wished he would hurry. Who knew how long the argument would occupy Max's attention?

Out of necessity, he went down the stairs, with Sharona right behind him. Across from them stood the water heater and both saw a plethora of boxes. Monk frantically brushed off his brown suit with his hands as if someone had dumped a pound of dirt on him.

"What are we looking for?" Sharona sniffed.

"I don't know yet." He murmured, walking around, with a wipe over his mouth.

"You'd better know soon...."

"Look! It's the vacumm!" Monk indicated, after some searching, a simple, seventies style upright, with a purple colored bag, hidden among other things. The sleuth gingerly moved things out of the way. "Of course! It's a Kirby! They've always been sold door-to-door. The dent on the floor happened because something got tangled, and then strained when that spot was vacuumed." The dent was what drove him to find the basement.

"But the person who most likely bought the vacuum is dead!" Sharona retorted. "Wait! How can you be sure that's the vacuum?"

"Because of the texture....It's hard to explain" Adrian shrugged.

"So you're saying.....that a vacuum salesman did it?"

"It was in here a few years before Emily Cavanaugh was murdered. The design is from the early seventies. She was killed in '79." He explained. "That's why he would not have been a suspect."

"You study vacumm design in your spare time??" Her New Jersey accent became more nasal in her disbelief.

"This is more of a psychedelic lavender, and the vacuum is not functional." He'd been examining it as he made his explanations to Sharona.

"How do you know it's him, and not some Avon lady?"

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

"I know you're in there!" Max boomed as he burst into the basement police raid style. However, once he saw the vacuum, his whole expression changed, as his gut told him that Monk could be onto something.

Relieved, Adrian told the barfly about his findings.

"Dad!" Jordan ran into the basement.

"Jordan, call Woody, and have him get Kirby employment records for the Boston area from 1970 to 1980."Max ordered. Woody, a friend of the medical examiner's, was a cop.

"I believe that a vacuum salesman might have had something to do with your mother's murder. "Adrian said and then again explained his theory.

By the next day, Leland had arrived, and the five were at the Cavanaugh home studying both cases. Max and he studied the police files, Jordan examined the forensics reports, Monk organized the refrigerator (he had seen its state when Max had opened it to get Leland a beer), and Sharona stood by with wipes.

"Could you throw that away?" Monk pointed to a piece of cheese in a bottom drawer, most of it encrusted by a greenish black mold.

"Did the M.E miss anything on the Cribner autopsy?" Max asked his daughter, as he examined crime scene photos from said case. Leland, who sat next to Jordan, read the police report on the Emily Cavanaugh murder.

"I'm still looking"

"You're not going to find anything in the medical examiner's report." Adrian stopped his task for a minute.

"I'll be the judge of that" she stated simply.

"Would you care to join us?" Max snarled at the sleuth.

"Look, he's probably got all this stuff memorized" Leland joked in an attempt to smooth things over, but he wished Adrian would stop obsessing about the refrigerator.

After making sure that the spoilt items were discarded, Adrian then proceeded to organize what was left based on his own complicated system. Leland sighed inwardly as he observed him.

"James Hawet!" the sleuth cried out.

"Cribner's gardener????" Max gave Adrian a 'What the Hell??' look, as did Jordan. The bar owner only recognized the name because he had just reread the various witness statements as taken by police officers at the crime scene.

The captain sighed again; it was hard enough to work on cases, where those close to the victim were in law enforcement without Monk and his tendency to well, be Monk.

"The man's gotta rock solid alibi!"!!!" Max checked the relevant material.

"Or does he?" the sleuth challenged.

"The medical examiner's report mentions nothing about accelerated decomposition" Jordan assented with her father. Freezing followed by thawing caused corpses to decompose faster. "So Cribner could not have been on ice during the week he was missing."

"If a dead body were to put in...space, what would happen to it?" Monk asked her, grimacing at his own scenario, but he wanted to make a point.

"It would just float around."

"But would it decompose?"

"No....." Jordan raised her eyebrows in annoyance.

""James Hawet vacuum sealed Cribner's body. " By now, he had gotten closer to the table, and had stopped his tidying up. The process of vacuum sealing, often used in the packaging of foods, effectively prevented rot because they are protected from the elements. Maggots and bacteria cannot survive where there is no oxygen.

"There's no indication that the body had any unusual marks." Jordan figured that whatever was used to wrap the body would leave imprints on the skin, especially if it was snug.

"Good question" the sleuth put his index finger on his lips.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

"We'll need to investigate James Hawet's whereabouts on the night of Emily's Cavanaugh's murder" Adrian continued.

"Can I use your phone, Max?." Leland asked. "I need to make a call" He decided to have Randy look into James Hawet.

"I'd rather talk to this guy myself" the barfly referred to Hawet. His face grew hard.

"Would that mean having to fly to San Francisco?" Monk whined with an anguished face. "What if he doesn't live there anymore?"

"Then I guess we'll need to go look for him." Leland said. "I'll have Randy do some preliminary legwork"

By the next evening, the group was on its way towards Baggage claim three at San Francisco Airport.

"I'm sorry you couldn't see this great city under better circumstances" Leland told Max, whose thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.

"What do you mean you haven't gotten those records???" Jordan yelled into her cell phone, and hung up after arguing with her friend Woody. Meanwhile, Adrian tried to straighten the various items on the carousel as they passed, causing a flood of dirty looks from cranky and tired passengers.

The next morning, they were debriefed by Randy in Leland's office.

"This was his last known address in San Francisco, sir" the lieutenant handed the captain a piece of paper. "He could be using an alias."

Quickly, they, sans Randy went to the apartment building, and questioned some neighbors.

"Do you remember a man by the name of James Hawet? Max asked at an apartment on the second floor.

"He was a quiet fellow who kept to himself" a balding man answered.

"Did you ever talk to him?" Leland added, they all stood around the man's living room. The smell of curry, pizza, and other food permeated the apartment, as well as take out containers of all shapes and sizes.

"Sometimes we'd chat about sports in the elevator."

"Only sports?" Max was suspicious.

"Yeah."

"We've heard about your 'other hobbies'" Max bluffed and he stepped closer to the man. Perhaps he was up to something that could give them leverage? The man, who was two feet shorter than the six foot barkeep, gulped as he did go outside the law, on occasion, to make his living.

"Do you by any chance have any air fresheners?" Adrian asked with a face of disgust, as he took it upon himself to pick up the containers.

"Is this some new ploy?" the man thought to himself "Bad cop, crazy cop?"

"Is there anything else you wanna tell us?" Max furiously took the man by the shoulders. This demonstrated why he was no longer a cop; too many years on the job, and the obsession with his wife's murder had taken their toll. He had been forced to retire, when his partner had reported his rough treatment of a suspect, who ended up in the hospital because of him.

"Uh.....the air freshener is under the kitchen sink" the man mumbled as Max put him against the wall. "Alright, Alright......we sometimes had drinks"

"And....?" The ex-detective lifted him a bit.

"He mentioned having friends in Pasadena."

"Names?"

"One of them owned a small bookstore called Fred's Books on Colorado." The man sometimes lived in Southern California.

Max finally put him down, and they all left the apartment.

"Leland can continue with the neighbors, and the rest of us can go to Pasadena." The barfly vaguely remembered that the city was in California.

"Could we go by car?" Adrian asked as Sharona groaned.

"But it's eight hours, Adrian!" Sharona tried to reason with the sleuth. "You've survived two cross country flights. What's one hour?"

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

"On a plane? Utter torture!"

"Too bad I forgot my teleporter" Jordan snorted, her obsession with the case made Monk's refusal rather blood boiling.

"He'd probably be afraid of those too" Leland said sardonically

"Wanna confront your fear of heights?" Max hinted with a menacing face that he'd lift and put Monk against the wall if he didn't change his mind. Fixation clouded his judgment.

"Save the Kojak crap, asshole!" Sharona gave the pub owner a fierce look.

"Why don't you ..!!" Jordan began to growl at the nurse, while stepping closer.

" Now let's all calm down" the police captain glared at everyone then focused on Max. "I know it's tempting, but banging Monk against the wall isn't gonna to get us anywhere. He hates to be touched, he's afraid of heights, and we'd have a catatonic man on our hands."

"That's why I have to go by car" Adrian seized whilst frowning at Leland. "After all the flying I've done, that one hour could be the last straw."

Sharona moaned, rolled her eyes and mouthed 'ugh'.

Then, she took the sleuth aside.

"You want your badge back, right?" she looked at him dourly.

"More than anything!!" Pain flashed in his eyes.

After some more discussion, and Sharona's chiding, Monk finally agreed to take one last plane trip on the condition that the return trip would be by car.

Before they left, they found that the bookstore was owned by a certain Frederick Kohl, who had no priors.

""Do you remember a man by the name of James Hawet? Max asked a bearded man in his fifties inside the Pasadena-based used book store.

"Sure….we were both SC fans, and would talk about sports whenever he came by."

"Where's your television?" Adrian cut in. He knew that most sports fans, who owned their own businesses, especially mom and pop ones, kept a television handy, so as to be able to keep up with their favorite teams.

"Huh?"

"How else can you talk sports if you don't watch the games?" 'Talking sports' the private consultant knew, involved more than just knowing the scores.

"I listen to the games on radio"

Monk noticed that the man didn't have a radio around and after all, there was no reason for the man to have a walkman since he was his own boss and had to be available for customers.

"Are you sure that nothing else came up?" Max, with a mean look, leaned on the light pinewood counter with his fingertips and looked like a cat ready to pounce.

"We talked about my bunghole." the shopkeeper retorted as Sharona groaned at the Beavis and Butthead reference. Her son, despite her efforts, was a fan of the crude cartoon.

"If you don't corporate you're gonna have pain in your bunghole!" Said cartoon was a guilty pleasure of Max's so he too got the reference. Leland, also familiar with Beavis and Butthead, could barely keep a straight face because of how the word 'bunghole' sounded with a Boston accent.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

Jordan stifled a laugh as well.

"What's a bunghole?" Adrian asked his assistant softly. He didn't keep up with pop culture stuff, and had never heard anybody threaten someone's 'bunghole'.

"I'll explain later." Sharona whispered with annoyance.

"Let's just say that if dad goes through with his threat, that guy won't be able to sit for at least a year" the medical examiner teased.

While the three bantered, Max continued his interrogation.

"What is this? A porno?" the store owner joked as he nervously started to step back.

"Spill! or you'll be the star of an S& M flick!" The barkeep grabbed him by the shirt before he could go too far.

"Okay, Okay, I saw him yesterday."

"Where?"

"Here."

"Where does he live?"

"I don't know"

"Are you sure?" Max tightened his grip.

"He talked about getting a place near the Paseo, a shopping area down the street" Recently, more and more apartment buildings in Pasadena were being built near or on top of shopping centers.

"Did he ever mention if he ever visited or lived in Boston?" the sleuth asked

"Yeah."

"Do you know if he was in sales?"

"Yeah, he mentioned that he sold vacuum cleaners for a while."

Everyone looked at each other. They then left the store.

"We should talk to the local police to have him brought in for questioning." Adrian said.

"I don't think I can. They're gonna say that it's just a bunch of coincidences. " Leland said. "Besides that guy must have sold hundreds of vacuums. Why her?"

"She was a cop's wife" Sharona pointed out.

"She couldn't have been the only cop's wife who bought a vacuum from him." The captain argued.

"Call Woody again. See if he can get those records" Max told Jordan.

"Tell him to focus on records between 1970 and 1974" Adrian added.

She did so. With a name, Woody was able, with more ease, to get the records by the next day. Before, Jordan had not told the detective to look for a certain name, as it could have been an alias.

"As it turns out, your mom did buy a vacuum from James Hawet" He told her over the phone, as he sat at his desk, then added with exasperation. "In 1972!"

"His motive is to yank the chain of the system." The medical examiner explained. "Did you check his record?"

"Yeah, there's nothing." Woody doubted that James Hawet was a viable suspect. "Are you sure about this Monk guy?"

"Yes."

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

While Jordan made her call, Max asked Leland:

"Don' t you have any connections?"

"Not in the Pasadena P.D"

The barkeep sighed heavily. They were so close, yet so far. He couldn't believe it.

Soon, Jordan got off the phone and told them what Woody had said.

"James Hawet sold a vacuum to my mom in 1972.."

"A lot of good that information does us if we can't find him." Leland answered.

"We just need to keep looking" Sharona told them.

Meanwhile, Monk noticed that some of the books at the bookstore's small display window were rather crooked so he went back inside to fix them. Then, unsatisfied with how they were arranged, he started to move the books around.

"Where's Monk?" Leland asked suddenly.

"Guess." Max rolled his eyes and pointed to the display window. Soon, the gang could see the store owner, with angry pantomiming, yelling at Monk to leave the display alone.

"You'll thank me later" Adrian told the owner, as he started to organize a shelf of books close to the entrance.. To his eye, they were disorganized, crooked, and misplaced.

"Let's go!" Max called him from the front entrance, as Sharona came in.

"Adrian, this isn't the time! "¨the nurse tried to be patient.

"I said let's go!" the bar owner entered the shop , roughly took the books from Monk's hands, and threw them on the floor. For him it was infuriating that Adrian would distract from the investigation of his wife's murder to organize some books.

"What the…..!!" Monk exclaimed with a pained face as he looked and pointed at the books that were on the floor. "Look at what you just did!!!"

"Leave! Or the rest of 'em go on the floor!!" Max threatened.

"Max!!" Leland joined the foray. "He'll think better if we just let him do this." The captain could see that the sleuth was getting distressed.

"He's right" Sharona said. "It's okay Adrian, just put them back."

"But just this one shelf!" Jordan warned.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

"So, you wanna do this alphabetically? Or by the Dewey decimal system?" Max glowered at the sleuth.

The gang gingerly took out the books, and sorted them based on Adrian's specifications. The sleuth himself put the books back.

"Which pile?" Max showed his daughter a book.

"Either that one…" she doubtfully pointed in one direction. "or that one" She changed the direction of her finger.

" Gee that was helpful." The bar owner told her mordantly.

"Several of those books shouldn't be in that pile." Adrian told the medical examiner

"Medical school was way easier than this!" Jordan complained sharply. Monk's categories and system for the task at hand were rather complex.

"Somehow, that does not surprise me" Leland commented.

Two hours later, they finally finished the shelf.

"Let's do this one" Adrian pointed to a shelf across from the one they had just finished. It did not seem right to him to leave that one undone.

"Oh for the…." The captain fumed with clenched teeth.

Max and Jordan's faces betrayed their anger.

Quickly, Sharona took the sleuth aside.

"Which is more important?" she hissed. "Catching a murderer or fixing a bookshelf?" the nurse crossed her arms.

"Catching a murderer." Adrian answered sheepishly.

Reluctantly, he left the bookstore with the others.

"Wipe!" the sleuth demanded when they got out.

Sharona opened her purse and looked for them. After a few minutes, the sleuth started to get irritated

"I'm out." She told him.

"We have to go back to the hotel!" Adrian started to panic. He couldn't be without his wipes.

"There's a pharmacy across the street" Leland said. "Let's buy some from there."

Unfortunately, the store lacked the brand, which Adrian preferred.

"Why don't you just use these?" Jordan asked impatiently as she showed him a package.

"It's not the same."

"It is the same thing!" the medical examiner argued in a loud voice, her patience wearing even thinner than before. "Same material and ingredients."

"Trust me. It's not the same"

"Look!" Jordan began. "I'm a doctor, and when I tell ya that it's the same, then it's the same."

"Is there a problem?" a store clerk asked them. He had heard the two arguing.

"No." Sharona said with embarrassment.

"Then please keep it down." He warned.

Thinking fast, the sleuth asked. "Do you have Sunshine wipes?" He hoped that they might have some in the stockroom.

"I'll go check." The man didn't mind helping ; maybe getting the brand this customer wanted would quiet things down.

Moments later, he came back with three packages.

"We had some out back."

"Thank you" the nurse said.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

"Let's pay for this stuff!" Max urged.

"Sharona could you lend me a few dollars?" Adrian asked. He was a cheap man.

"No!" The nurse gave him an angry look.

"If you had brought enough wipes…….." he began

"Is that even possible?" Leland cut in.

"I'll take care of it!" Jordan grabbed the packages of wipes from Sharona and paid for them with a credit card. She really wanted to leave the store and get on with the investigation.

"Let's stop screwing around!" Max gave Monk a warning look as they exited the store.

"Could someone pick that up?" the sleuth noticed a piece of chewed gum on the ground.

"You pick it up!" Sharona made a disgusted face.

"How about I shove it in ya mouth?" the bar owner growled. He wryly felt being a cop and single parent had not been as stressful as working with Monk on this case.

"That would not be such a good idea…." Adrian said lamely and with some tentativeness.

Just then, a homeless person, with a shopping cart full of blankets, empty cans, and such, walked by them.

"Would you like some wipes?" the sleuth offered with a face.

"No!" the man refused.

"You don't smell like homeless person usually does" Monk remarked.

"I got washed up at the Y a few days ago"

"It's too soon for the dirt on your face to be so thick and your cart looks too new."

"What?" the man said, as he started to leave.

Max stopped the man, and after some questioning they found out that he was wanted by the police. Leland took out his gun, as the ex-detective handcuffed him(the captain had been able to take his gun and handcuffs on the plane because he was a police officer). This put Monk in the good graces of the Pasadena Police department as the man had been a suspect in several rapes and murders. Thusly, the gang got local help in finding James Hawet.

"Where were you on September 18, 1979?" Leland asked the suspect in an interrogation room.

"That was such a long time ago, officer" Hawet said.

On and on the interrogation went, without much luck. Unfortunately, the police had to let James Hawet go.

"Couldn't you have done something?" Jordan asked Leland angrily.

"No."

The next day, while James Hawet was at work, Jordan and Max broke into his apartment.

"Find anything?" Max asked.

"A gun, but it wasn't what he used to kill mom or Cribner, but I'm taking it anyway." Using a cloth, she put it in a ziplock bag. She figured that Hawet might have killed others.

Angry and disappointed, they left the apartment, spent time in a bar, and returned to the hotel, where, at the lobby the police waited. Neighbors of Hawet had seen them. Both spent time in jail, until Monk reluctantly agreed to help on a case in exchange for having charges dropped. He understood perfectly what Max was going through.

"What are you doing working on another case?" Jordan asked the sleuth the evening after she and Max were freed. Monk had his own room, Jordan shared one with Sharona, and Max roomed with Leland. The medical examiner was paying for the expenses.

"He had to agree to do it so you two could get out of jail." Leland said. They were all at Monk's room.

"What about my mom's case?" Jordan argued, as she paced around. "We need to prove that he killed her!"

"The case has a phantom print." Adrian commented.

"You're kidding!" Jordan took out the phantom print from her mother's murder. "Let me see it!"

She put the two transparencies together, but they were nothing alike, to her eyes at least. Adrian examined them carefully.

"This fingerprint is fake as well." He told them. "The lines are a little wider apart and higher than in the other one."

So, everyone started to pore over the case.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

"I'm not done with that!" Max groaned, two hours later, when Adrian tried to take his almost empty plate of takeout food.

"I don't mean to rush you"

"Sure ya did." The detective retorted, though not very gruffly. He realized that if Monk hadn't delayed them in the bookstore, the favorable chain of events would not have happened.

"Don't go in there!" Adrian said to Jordan when she went into the bathroom and closed the door. When staying at a hotel, Monk loathed having other people use the lavatory in the room he was staying in.

"Just clean it when I get out." the medical examiner called back.

"Are you done yet?" He asked after a second.

"The bed is not too bad." Max deliberately sat on it to distract Monk from pestering Jordan.

"Don't sit there!"

The bar owner got up, and Monk changed the sheets.

"How many sets do you have?" Max asked.

"Many." Adrian opened one of his suitcases and got a plastic wrapped set of sheets. After he changed them, the sleuth cleaned the restroom.

The next day, at Monk's room, they talked to the detective in charge of the case the sleuth had to do to free Jordan and Max. To say the least, she was skeptical.

"You're saying that the fingerprint is fake?"

"Yes." Monk replied.

"And it's connected to these two other cases, one of which also has a fake fingerprint and the other a homemade gun?"

"Yes." The sleuth repeated.

"How did you come up with this 'theory'?"

Monk gave her a very detailed elucidation of why the prints from that and Emily Cavanaugh's case were fakes.

"The ridge endings on both of them end at an awkward angle" He said. "It should be a few degrees this way." He pointed to spots on both fingerprint transparencies.

"What else?" She couldn't see what he talked about.

"The flexure crease found in the fingerprint found at the Slank murder scene is too high, while the one from the Cavanaugh case is too low."

On an on he tried to explain, as the detective asked many questions.

"Perps get new tech, just like cops do" Leland argued at one point.

"This isn't a James Bond movie!" the woman countered impatiently. "Perps don't fake fingerprints! Murderers don't make guns from scratch! Look, I haven't got time to waste. Call me when you have something within the realm of reality." With that, the detective left.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

Jordan angrily tried to stop the woman, but Leland restrained her.

"You won't be much help if you're behind bars" he reminded her.

For the next several hours, they studied the three cases.

"Does anyone have scissors?" Adrian asked at one point.

"Why?" Jordan asked.

"Some of these papers are longer than the folder"

"Oh for the love of God…" Max rolled his eyes.

"Why don't we order room service?" Jordan suggested.

Before anyone could answer, there was an earthquake.

"Jordan!" Max worriedly called his daughter out of parental instinct.

"Get under something!" Jordan yelled.

"Oh my God!" the sleuth panicked; fear paralyzed him.

Sharona pulled him under a work desk, as things started to fall, and the roar of the moving earth continued for another minute. Soon, it stopped, and Sharona ran to the phone to call Benji, who was staying with her sister. Max, quickly went to check on Jordan.

"Are you all right?". He had never experienced an earthquake and felt a bit unnerved.

"I'm fine dad." Jordan answered. "You?"

"I've felt better"

"Benji's fine. He didn't feel anything."

"I doubt that he would have" the captain commented, though he understood Sharona's need to check.

"You can come out now, Adrian" Sharona told the sleuth, who was still under the working desk. He held onto its legs for dear life. Fear of earthquakes trumped his germ phobia.

"There could be an aftershock"

As if on cue, a very small twenty second aftershock occurred.

Meanwhile, Max and Jordan picked up the various case file materials that had fallen.

TBC


End file.
